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SERMON 



PREACHED IN 



THE FIRST CHURCH, WEST ROXBURY, 



JUNE 4, 1854; 



IT BEING THE SUNDAY AFTER THE 



RETURN OF ANTHONY BURNS TO SLAVERY. 



BY E. B. WILLSOK 



BOSTON: 

PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON & SON, 

22, School Steeet. 

1854. 






/^o /t 



Note. — No one knows better than the writer that the following pages cannot haye an 
extended or a permanent interest. In putting them into the printer's hand, at the sugges- 
tion of a friend, he has been influenced by the consideration that every added voice against 
slavery is a contribution, however small, to the great Public Voice which is yet to send forth 
its omnipotent word decreeing the doom of that overshadowing wrong. 



<^Oi-ii6U Vniv. 
d Fob 06 



SERMON 



Matt. xxy. 45 : " Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of 

THESE, ye did IT NOT TO ME." 

I HAVE scarcely felt myself equal, my friends, to the 
duty of meeting you this morning. I have not come 
to preach. I have written down no carefully medi- 
tated words for your instruction. What time I would 
have given to preparation for this service has been 
otherwise filled. Neither my mind nor my heart has 
recovered from the shock which the events of the 
past few days, and particularly of the day before yes- 
terday, have brought on them. Humiliated, sickened, 
and oppressed, I have come from witnessing those 
events. The fresh remembrance of them haunts my 
waking and my sleeping thoughts. It has been im- 
possible for me siifficiently to withdraw myself from 
the spell of their terrible power, to review them in 
all their relations, with a ca;lm, steady eye. But, 
though I cannot get clear of this horrible nightmare 
yet, nor shake off wholly the confusion and bewilder- 



ment into which I have been thrown by them, the 
worst of it all is that I do see clearly, too clearly, 
certain facts, which I would fain be convinced are 
no facts. Alas ! no welcome uncertainty obscures 
them ; not the thinnest veil of doubt hides them ; 
eyes that are shut, and eyes that never saw, can see 
them. And yet I find my whole nature struggling 
against their credibility, and protesting that they are 
too appallmg to be believed. Even that which is 
linown certainly for fact, a revolting moral nature 
vaialy strives to reject as an impossible turpitude. 

Do you ask why I have allowed myself to be a 
witness of these things, if they were a spectacle so 
painful \ Because I thought it a duty. It seemed to 
me that I ought to be at least an attending mourner 
when Liberty was to be consigned to her grave; a 
silent protester, if no more, when Justice and holy 
Mercy were to be put to open shame. Moreover, it 
seemed to me a duty to be present for the purpose 
of gathering the indelible lessons of that hour. It 
seemed as if the Lord of eternal righteousness and 
all-mcluding love, displeased with our cold disregard 
and forgetfulness of those wronged and suffering mil- 
lions at a distance, "whose bonds we help to make fast, 
but whose oppressed condition is not much in our 
minds because it is not much in our sight, — it 
seemed, I say, as if it might be God's purpose to 
compel us to see, by bringing its hateful presence to 
our very doors, what a fearful crime we are assisting 



to uphold. I did not feel at liberty to decline the 
lesson. Still, it was almost too much for himian 
endurance; and once I turned back as from a sight 
I could not bear. More than one man I met on that 
Friday morning whose grief and pity ran over at 
his eyes ; more than one whose words choked in his 
throat, and could not find utterance because of his 
emotion. Many a pair who met in those crowded 
streets griped each other's hand with that long, hard 
pressure which men use when they cannot speak, and, 
ha\dng seen it in each other's eyes that their mutual 
feeling was understood, passed on without a word. 

It is not my wish, in alluding to these occurrences, 
to fan a feeling of indignation against those who have 
been at man-hunting in Boston. That feelmg is na- 
tural. It has been with me. It may be right. But 
other feelings than that are now with me uppermost, 
— yes, and undermost, and most pervadmg. I am 
altogether saddened and ashamed. A sense of utter 
degradation weighs me down. There is at this mo- 
ment no room in my heart for any other feeling. 
There have been moments when I could almost adopt 
the recent language of a noble-hearted friend, who 
said, " I am ashamed to live ! " — so entire is the 
humiliation I feel. 

I am sensible, however, that these transactions may 
be looked at from one point of view, seen from which, 
they wear the same humiliating aspect, indeed, but 
allow the hope, that the humiliation produced by 



6 



them may turn out to be that wholesome self-convic- 
tion that brings repentance, and so better deeds. 
These events are making slavery better known to us. 
Many eyes have been opened by them. We have 
often been told, that our dislike of slavery was a pre- 
judice; that, if we only knew more of it, if we could 
but live in the midst of it, our prejudices against it 
would vanish. Well, as we could not go to it, it has 
come to us. Apparently, it means that we shall not 
lack opportunity to make its acquaintance through 
staying at home. It has been showing us, within 
these few days, Avhat are its nature and spirit. The 
teaching must not be lost upon us. Let us study the 
lesson well. 

Its first act is to creep stealthily on its unsuspecting 
victim with a lie in its mouth, and a false accusation 
on its tongue. It dare not tell the truth. It is afraid 
to say openly that it has come to take a man charged 
vdth no crime, and make a slave of him. It pretends 
that he is a criminal, till it has fixed its grasp on him, 
and hurried him beyond the sight of pitying eyes, and 
behind walls of stone, and there set men, with hearts 
of stone, to keep watch and guard over him. Then 
its disguise is thrown off". It acknowledges then that 
his only crimes are, that his skin is dark-colored, and 
that he sought his liberty at the risk of scourging 
and death. 

Your grandsires and mine, not a long time back, 
broke away from what they called tyranny, though it 



was freedom, justice, and indulgence, — it was mater- 
nal gentleness, — as compared with the tyranny from 
which this man fled ; and we pay them honor. Our 
hearts swell, and our words are big, and our demon- 
strations are high-sounding, when we descant upon 
their heroism and their vktue. This poor, wretched, 
outlawed Virginian, pined in a bondage, — one day of 
which is worse than fifty years of such as our fathers 
felt, — and so he fled from it, at the peril of life. 
And what do we 1 Celebrate his courage with bell- 
ringings, and waving banners, and glorifying dis- 
course ? No ; we pay men to hunt and catch him, 
and give him to his master, though that master were 
as cruel as Nero ! And no shelter in all this wide 
land can receive and protect him. There is no altar 
of refuge, whence he could not be torn. Were he to 
come, fainting with fear, into this very place and pre- 
sence, as we were ofFermg our prayers, or singing our 
praises, or reading those verses in the book of Deu- 
teronomy which I read a few minutes ago,* and here 
fall at our feet, imploring protection against his op- 
pressor, no man or woman of us all might interpose 
for his safety, without invoking on his own head the 
same crushing cruelty which had already stricken him 
down. 

* « Thou Shalt not dehver unto his master the servant which is escaped 
from his master unto thee. He shaU dweU with thee, even among you in that 
place which he shall choose in one of thy gates where it liketh him best. 
Thou Shalt not oppress him." — Deut. xxiii. 15, 16. 



Slavery desires you to know it better, that your 
prejudices against it may be overcome. And, to show 
you how groundless are your antipathies, it turns the 
temple of justice into a slave-pen, and, arming such 
ruffianly and insolent fellows as it can find willing 
to engage in its service, sets them to keep its doors, 
where they insult quiet and orderly citizens, entering 
for the transaction of their lawful business. It calls 
on you, or your son, to put on epaulet and plume, to 
arm yourself, — and there must be no shamming this 
time, no blank cartridges ; the equipment requires 
deadly bullet, as well as noisy powder, — and then it 
calls you to go forth and take possession of the peace- 
ful marts, to stop up the avenues of trade, to arrest 
the regular on-goings of industry, and to make all 
ready and convenient, that the tyrant and oppressor 
may drag his human prey through your streets and to 
his doom, without fear of molestation or hindrance. 
Lest some overcharged hearts among all those tens of 
thousands of mtnesses should be moved irresistibly 
by the great tide of an overflowing compassion and 
an indignant humanity to break in, not to kill or 
hurt, but to give back to an innocent man that liberty 
of which he had been robbed, and to which his right 
is inalienable, — lest some such act of justice and 
right should be accomplished, I say, slavery requires 
you, or your young son, may be, whose majority is 
scarce attained, to march up and down the city-ways 
with loaded gun, driving the peaceful inhabitants from 



their avocations, and arbitrarily closing up the thor- 
oughfares of busmess. 

Slavery wishes itself to be kno^vn. God grant it 
may be ! Let it be known what sort of associates it 
naturally draws around itself, and what classes of men 
are arrayed as naturally and necessarily against it. I 
saw, ui my walks through the streets of Boston, on 
Friday, among those who had come, with mourning 
hearts, to see the great sacrifice to be laid on Slavery's 
altar, Christians of various denominations ; venerable, 
gray-haired clergymen ; men who have labored for 
years in every humane enterprise ; men of peace, of 
sobriety, of every virtue ; such men as the State relies 
on in her crises and emergencies ; such as have repeat- 
edly received tokens of the confidence of the right- 
minded; such as have discharged high and varied 
trusts, with unblemished honor ; such as have ever 
been foremost in maintaining good laws, and guard- 
ing the social order. These, slavery accounted her 
enemies ; and she was not mistaken : they were. 

Now, whom did she call around her as her natural 
allies ? To whom did she look for support 1 I will 
not speak particularly of the soldiery who were called 
into service on the occasion, because many went reluc- 
tantly, and because perhaps they could not be expect- 
ed to know better, or to be better, than that moral 
doctrine so current among the unreflecting, which 
teaches that a soldier is no more responsible for what 
he does, in obedience to a superior, than if he were a 



10 



billet of wood. Passing by the soldiers, then, most 
of whom went reluctantly to this " duty," as they 
called it, who were the voluntary supporters of sla- 
very on this occasion I I was told by those who 
should know, that the persons who offered their 
services to the United States officer, to keep guard 
around the captive, lest he should regain his just and 
inalienable rights, were, some of them, men who had 
been in our prisons, — men kno'wn, notorious even, as 
men of depraved character, such as do not live by 
quiet industry, but by preying on society. If there 
were any doubts of their character, one needed but 
look into their faces to believe the worst thing said of 
them. I never saw, in the same number of men, so 
large a proportion of sinister, savage, and brutish 
countenances. These are Slavery's fit ministers. They 
instinctively side with the robber and the oppressor. 

Besides those regularly enlisted to carry out the 
great crime of stealing a man, the awful deed of dark- 
ness which was to be consummated brought out many 
of congenial and kindred mind to witness and encourage 
it. Men with the red eyes of drunkenness, and men 
with profane oaths on theij lips, were seen about the 
streets, cheering their vile confederates more immedi- 
ately implicated in the deed of shame ; — yes, such 
were to be seen, grouped and shouting their applause, 
about those very streets from which sober, respectable, 
and Christian citizens had just before been driven like 
sheep. I am not drawing a picture from imagination, 



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11 



nor bringing you street rumors. I am telling chiefly 
what I saw and heard at only one point of observa- 
tion. 

Does the character of slavery need farther illustra- 
tion ■? See how the noble-hearted counsellor, who 
came forward to render aid to the friendless slave, 
was assaulted in his homeward walk, and not mur- 
dered only because the blow was not so skilfully dealt 
as the striker probably meant it should be. Was 
the assassin, do you suppose, a friend or an enemy 
of those who hunt slaves ? 

Even intelligent persons have spoken of the late 
occurrences as if those who aided in capturing and 
sending to hopeless bondage a fellow-man were spe- 
cially the friends of law and order, as if those who 
struggled against the execution of that inhuman law 
were characteristically disturbers of the public peace. 
Never was there a greater violation of truth. One 
could not walk the streets of Boston on Friday morn- 
ing last, for half an hour, without being convinced 
that those crowds from which came the cries of 
shame, as the human sacrifice went on, were largely 
made up of those very classes on whom the social 
fabric rests as its supporting pillars, — the just, the 
humane, the self-governed, the industrious, the lovers 
of peace and of order. No more could a half-hour's 
observation leave a doubt, that those from whom dis- 
orders, social tumults, riots, and crimes mostly come 
were generally in active sympathy with those who 



12 



catch men. Of course, I have not meant that every 
man who has opposed the slave-catching is a good 
man, nor that every man is utterly vile who has con- 
sented to it. I have been characterizing classes. 

But do you remind me, that all that was done was 
lawfully done ? I have much to say on that point ; 
and I shall speak, at another time, of the relations of 
the Christian citizen to the State, and particularly 
of his relations to a law that requires him, at least, to 
permit the catching, binding, and delivering over of his 
neighbor, charged with no crime, to scourgings, to un- 
requited labor, to all the indescribable horrors of that 
doom for which American slavery is the name. 

We ought at least to hear no more apologies for 
slavery, no more suggestions, that, if we knew it bet- 
ter, our opposition to it would be mitigated. It has 
come among us, and made its character evident. It 
is our fault, if we do not know it by this time. But, 
mark you, my friends, we shall know it better yet, 
before we are done with it, or rather before it is done 
with us. It will show itself here again, doubtless. 
It will show itself, without coming again, in the 
ripening of those fruits of lawlessness and violence 
among us of which it has sown the seeds, and whose 
budding forth is already taking place. Slavery is no 
worse now than it was ten months ago, before Ne- 
braska bills were passed, and fugitive-slave bills were 
revived : it is the same thing, only a little better 
known. Late events have not changed it : they have 



13 



only partially exposed it. In this view of things, the 
events of the last week are not to be regretted. A 
known and seen danger is always less dangerous than 
a concealed one. Slavery is more likely to be judged 
aright, and treated aright, for having come among us 
and exhibited itself. God has made us see to what 
enormities we have been parties, in so far as we have 
suffered this government to go on its course of op- 
pression vdthout gainsaying or opposition. The truth 
to be remarked, to be treasured up, not to be forgotten, 
is, that we have seen in Boston, the last week, not all 
of slavery, not much of it, but only a sample of it, as 
far as it goes ; a single illustration of its merciless 
spirit, of its cruel law. There you have seen what 
slavery is. There you see its essential nature. It is 
not always and everywhere so bad. But here it has 
done nothing contrary to its inherent spirit. Where- 
ever and whenever it is better than we have seen it in 
this case, it is bettor because they who use it are bet- 
ter than it is, just as men who belong to a religious 
or a political party, or to any other organized society, 
may be better than their principles of organization. 
We have seen here, not the abuses of slavery, but 
slavery. Nobody pretends that these slave-hunters 
have done worse than is consistent with the law of 
slavery. They have not. They have exhibited sla- 
very in its o-wn true colors. If we cannot yet see 
what those colors are, we probably never shall. 

In what I have been saying, I have not forgotten 



14 



where we are^ nor lost sight of those elements with 
which the table before me is spread. We are here as 
Christians. As believers m the Son of God and his 
followers, we are soon to commemorate his love of 
man, stronger than his love of life. Have the words 
which have been spoken seemed inharmonious with 
those feelings which become Christian communion 1 
If so, I have either mislearned Christ, or mistaught 
him. It is from Christ that I have learned to prefer 
mercy to sacrifice. From him I have learned to be- 
lieve in God as no respecter of persons, — to believe 
that he is our Father, and that the meaning of " our " 
is <i//-embracing, knowing nothing of master or ser- 
vant, of rich or poor, of black or white, of African 
or Saxon. 

From him I learn the golden rule, to do to another 
what it is right for me to ask another to do to me. 
From him I learn that love, love to God and the 
neighbor, fulfils the law. I hear him say, " Inasmuch 
as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my 
brethren, ye have done it unto me." Does any one 
believe, that, if there had been a spirit as pure and 
holy as that of Jesus of Nazareth in that man of 
sable cheek whom Massachusetts men marched from 
Boston Court House to the United States slave-ship, 
it would have altered the matter one grain ? No. 
Everybody knows it would not. We know that 
slavery comes as near to buying and selling Christ 
as it is possible for it to do ; for it buys and sells his 



15 

disciples ; and the more saintly their virtue, the 
higher price they bring in the market. The more 
of the di\dne Master's image there is in them, the 
more highly prized are they by these traders in the 
children of God. That Christian forbearance which 
in a servant makes him gentle and submissive, has a 
place m the list of prices-current in each man-buying 
and man-selling community. 

But Jesus did not say, that to treat the purest and 
best of his disciples with neglect and cruelty was the 
same as treating him so. He said, " Inasmuch as ye 
did it not unto one of the least, — not the greatest, 
but the least, — of these my brethren, ye did it not to 
me." In the eye of Christ, in the eye of God, in the 
eye of every one born of God and following Christ, 
the treatment which Anthony Burns received in this, 
which calls itself a Christian community, is no better, 
no worse, than if it had been shown to Jesus himself 
Indeed, that treatment, precisely that treatment, would 
Jesus have received, had he lived now, had he been 
the son of a Virginian bond-woman, and had he 
dared to travel away from Vu'ginian captivity. Were 
Jesus alive now, and of African complexion, he could 
not walk a mile beyond the boundary-line of a Slave 
State without the liability of being hauled to prison, 
and sold thence into a life-long bondage. 

I have but begun to say what it is in my heart to 
say. But I have spoken longer than I purposed 
when I began. I have only to remind you, in finish- 



16 



ing these remarks, and in view of that communion- 
rite before us, in which we are to recall the sacrifice 
of the cross, that it is not they who cry Lord, Lord, 
not those who shall say, " We have eaten and drunk 
in thy presence, or thou hast taught in our streets," 
whom God will recognize as his childi'en, or whom 
Jesus will know as his disciples. 

If any one thinks, that, in the sufi'erings of Jesus 
alone, we should have found a fitter 'theme for the 
meditations of this hour, I can only repeat the words 
of Jesus himself, addressed to the daughters of Jeru- 
salem, as he went on that sorrowful march to the 
cross, — "Weep not for me, but weep fob, your- 
selves, AND FOR your CHILDREN." 



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